Stuff I learned along the way…

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There was a king who was a great admirer of art. He encouraged artists from all over his country and gave them valuable gifts.

One day an artist came and said to the king, “Oh King! Give me a blank wall in your palace and let me paint a picture on it. It will be more beautiful than anything you have ever seen before. I promise you shall not be disappointed.” Now, the king happened to be constructing a big hall at the rear end of the palace. So he said, “All right you may work on one of the walls in the new hall.”

So the artist was given the job and he was very pleased indeed. Just then, another young man said, “Oh King! Please allow me to work on the opposite wall. I too am an artist.”

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Two traveling angels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion’s guest room. Instead the angels were given a small space in the cold basement. As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and repaired it.

When the younger angel asked why, the older angel replied, “Things aren’t always what they seem.” The next night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food they had the couple let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night’s rest.

When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field. The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel how could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him, she accused. The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let the cow die.

“Things aren’t always what they seem,” the older angel replied. “When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn’t find it.” “Then last night as we slept in the farmers bed, the angel of death came for his wife. I gave him the cow instead. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

Sometimes that is exactly what happens when things don’t turn out the way they should. If you have faith, you just need to trust that every out come is always to your advantage. You might not know it until some time later…

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“For those of you in the cheap seats I’d like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelery!” John Lennon

I remember hearing ‘Hey Jude’ blaring from the speakers at school when I was a young boy. I was as much caught up in Beatle-mania as the next person. The ‘Fab Four’ totally turned the music world upside down with their vast array of melodies, clever lyrics and singable tunes.

But even though I love the cheekiness – as represented in the above quote – of John Lennon, there is so much more that he shared with the world apart from his music. Therein lies a depth of wisdom that I would like to expand upon.

So let us explore together yet another side of the man that encouraged us all to ‘Imagine’.

1.”Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

It has been written that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Blink and twenty years will pass you by. Life is never a direct route. It weaves. It twists. It turns. But if you have a goal, a dream or a plan in place, it acts as a compass that keeps you on track, no matter what detours need to be taken along the way.

2. “Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.”

Nothing is ever wasted. I experienced nearly 26 years in my life that I call the ‘lost years’, and yet, even though my true identity was lost during that period, the lessons learnt were invaluable. Those years have supplied me with stories that I can now tell to help others to enjoy and prosper from their uniqueness.

3. “It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.”

Success is not restricted to culture, gender or heritage. Successful people rise up from every conceivable starting point. So we can never use our state of being as an excuse for never achieving great things. One person with a dream, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve that dream, makes it a level playing field.

4. “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”

Dreams are no fun if you keep them to yourself. Dreams are to be shared. Dreams fulfilled are to be enjoyed by all. Whenever I succeed I celebrate it with my family and my friends. I get the greatest satisfaction from the spin-off of my successes and how they positively impact those whom I love.

5. “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”

Reality plus a sprinkle of imagination turns that which seems impossible into something that is possible. If you can imagine it, and you can believe it, you can achieve it. Dare to be as a child once again and imagine by asking yourself the question, ‘What if?’ Then go do.

6. “If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that’s his problem. Love and peace are eternal.”

To love and to be loved would have to be the greatest thing that I have ever experienced. In my darkest hours it has been the love shown to me that has sustained me and strengthened my resolve to press on.

And then there is peace. Solitude and the practice of solitude have constantly filled me with peace. It is the eye in the storm. It is the rock that stands firm. Peace has sustained me and refreshed me. And it is in this place that definitive and life changing decisions have been made to move me forward in life.

7. “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

Not one of us can do it alone. Without friends, and the support of friends, we live in a desert. For friends are the oases. Friends are the refreshing. Friends lift us up when we are down. Friends believe in us when no-one else does. Friends are there in fair weather, and there when storms rage. Friends know when to speak and when to keep silent. Friends for life.

8. “You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!”

Stop listening to what others say you are. You are what you are, and the older you get the more knowledgeable you need to become of who you really are. This is your road of self discovery. This is the unveiling of your uniqueness. This is the birth of self-pride – a healthy pride that is proud of what you have been created to be and to do. Listen to your inner voice and stand up tall knowing who you are.

9. “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”

Joy. Happiness. Companionship. Define your life by the company that you keep and by the goodness that you can deposit into the lives of those around you. How do you measure the effectiveness of your life? Make it much more than what you can acquire. Measure it by what you can give.

10. “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”

Nothing happens by accident. There is an eternal plan for each of us, and even what appears to be the greatest mistake will in retrospect be the perfect piece of stitching embroidered into the fabric of your life. Someone once showed me the back of an embroidered piece of cloth. On the back it appeared as a tangled mess. But by turning it over a beautiful piece of handiwork was revealed. So too our lives.

11. “One thing you can’t hide – is when you’re crippled inside.”

Angry people are angry with themselves. Unfriendly people don’t like themselves. How people act clearly reveals what is going on in the inside of their minds and hearts. People who love themselves have no difficulty in loving others. People who have no problem in forgiving others have forgiven themselves. As a man or woman thinks so he or she will speak. So turn to the cripple within your life and command – ‘Take up your bed and walk!’ Begin to live as the human that was created for greatness. You were never created to be an invalid. Healing is your portion and success is your right.

And for one final word from John Lennon, who was cut down in the prime of his life – “I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe in it. It’s just getting out of one car, and into another.”

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The road to hell may or may not be paved with good intentions, but the road to failure surely is. Take a good look at the people you work with, and you’ll find lots of Good Starters — individuals who want to succeed, and have promising ideas for how to make that happen. They begin each new pursuit with enthusiasm, or at the very least, a commitment to getting the job done.

And then something happens. Somewhere along the way, they lose steam. They get bogged down with other projects. They start procrastinating and miss deadlines. Their projects take forever to finish, if they get finished at all.

Does all this sound familiar? Maybe a little too familiar? If you are guilty of being a Good Starter, but a lousy finisher — at work or in your personal life — you have a very common problem. After all, David Allen’sGetting Things Done wouldn’t be a huge bestseller if people could easily figure out how to get things done on their own.

More than anything else, becoming a Great Finisher is about staying motivated from a project’s beginning to its end. Recent research has uncovered the reason why that can be so difficult, and a simple and effective strategy you can use to keep motivation high.

In their studies, University of Chicago psychologists Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbach examined how people pursuing goals were affected by focusing on either how far they had already come (to-datethinking) or what was left to be accomplished (to-go thinking). People routinely use both kinds of thinking to motivate themselves. A marathon runner may choose to think about the miles already traveled or the ones that lie ahead. A dieter who wants to lose 30 pounds may try to fight temptation by reminding themselves of the 20 pounds already lost, or the 10 left to go.

Intuitively, both approaches have their appeal. But too much to-date thinking, focusing on what you’ve accomplished so far, will actually undermine your motivation to finish rather than sustain it.

Koo and Fishbach’s studies consistently show that when we are pursuing a goal and consider how far we’ve already come, we feel a premature sense of accomplishment and begin to slack off. For instance, in one study, college students studying for an exam in an important course were significantly more motivated to study after being told that they had 52% of the material left to cover, compared to being told that they had already completed 48%.

When we focus on progress made, we’re also more likely to try to achieve a sense of “balance” by making progress on other important goals. This is classic Good Starter behavior — lots of pots on the stove, but nothing is ever ready to eat.

If, instead, we focus on how far we have left to go (to-go thinking), motivation is not only sustained, it’s heightened. Fundamentally, this has to do with the way our brains are wired. To-go thinking helps us tune in to the presence of a discrepancy between where we are now and where we want to be. When the human brain detects a discrepancy, it reacts by throwing resources at it: attention, effort, deeper processing of information, and willpower.

In fact, it’s the discrepancy that signals that an action is needed — to-date thinking masks that signal. You might feel good about the ground you’ve covered, but you probably won’t cover much more.

Great Finishers force themselves to stay focused on the goal, and never congratulate themselves on a job half-done. Great managers create Great Finishers by reminding their employees to keep their eyes on the prize, and are careful to avoid giving effusive praise or rewards for hitting milestones “along the way.” Encouragement is important, but to keep your team motivated, save the accolades for a job well — and completely — done.